Death's Avatar (Descent, #0.5) - S.M. Reine *4 1/2 Stars....For such a short book, this 79 page novella packs quite a punch. However, from S.M. Reine, that is no surprise.This was just a taste of what’s to come in the Descent series and not a page or a word was wasted. This was more than an introduction, it was impossible to put down. The action was intense, the characters were layered, the world building was amazing and nothing about any of it was sugar coated, which is what I’ve come to expect from S.M. Reine. She doesn’t pull any punches with her characters or what she puts them through. I kinda like that Elise and James are definitely characters that I want to get to know better and there’s 7 books in this series that will help me do just that, plus one more novella, Deadly Hearts. The first full length book in the series is Death’s Hand.